Joseph Young leads the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra during a performance at New Psalmist Baptist Church.
“Music as a public service: This was the idea of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra when it was established in 1916 as the first fully municipal orchestra in the country,” writes Elizabeth None-maker in Saturday’s (2/28) Baltimore Sun. “Today, the BSO acquires a significant part of its funding through private donations, but its mission remains the same, and its new Symphony in the City series may rank among its best efforts to fulfill this role as public servant. Launched in January of this year, Symphony in the City takes the BSO to different neighborhoods around Baltimore to offer concerts free of charge. It is meaningful, too, that its two most recent concerts (held Friday at the New Psalmist Baptist Church and Wednesday at Morgan State University) highlighted, in part, the talents of black conductors, soloists and composers. While there is no shortage of the latter … it’s worth asking how well orchestras speak to cities that are, like Baltimore, majority black. The last two Symphony in the City concerts … enthusiastically attended by mixed audiences.… These are joyful, unpretentious concerts.”
